


Soft Daze

by Princex_N



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Days, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Light Angst, Platonic Cuddling, Post-The Eleventh Hour, Taako's Ears, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8594638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: Everyone has been having a bit of a rough time since their return from Refuge, but honestly, who can blame them.The boy's bad days coincide. Magnus fucks with Taako's ears. Taako is an annoyed cat.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was largely influenced by the talk of taako's ears at tumblr user roswelltxt's stream last night. good stream, good ears, good all around tbh.

Days like today are ostensibly the worst. 

It was only a couple of days ago that they had gotten back from Refuge. They'd won, destroyed another relic, succeeded. 

Today, Magnus can't even get out of bed.

And he knows that he  _should_ be able to get up. It's not like it's actually impossible, he could probably get up if he had to. And he does have to, because the last thing he wants is to worry the others, but he's just so fucking tired. 

He doesn't have to wonder what caused it this time. Seeing her again, seeing her _so_ close, had been hard. Sometimes it's easy to move past just how much he misses her, other times it feels like he's being crushed by the weight of just how much he  _misses_ her. Today is definitely one of the latter times. 

Magnus takes a deep breath. This  _sucks_. He gets up. It feels like one of the hardest thing he's ever fucking done; it hurts, but he manages it. 

Now half the task is done, the problem is figuring out what the second half of the task even is. He doesn't actually  _want_ to do anything but get back in bed and sleep until this feeling goes away. He tries to figure out what Normal Magnus would be doing on a normal day, but he can hardly think, much less make plans. 

Take things one step at a time. He hasn't eaten; he should eat. 

Now he has a task; eat breakfast. And that's the plan, but when he walks out of his room, the sight that welcomes him is one of Taako, sitting at the counter and eating the grapes that Magnus had bought for himself after training with Carey one day. 

It's not an unusual thing for Magnus to wake up and find the elf in his room, eating his food. Taako never bothers to buy his own food for some reason, and since all three of their team tend to wander in and out of each others rooms freely, Magnus never bothers with locking his door. So seeing Taako there isn't really a big deal. 

What _is_ odd is the way the elf's ears are drooped low, despite the fact that he has his usual placid expression still on his face. 

And maybe it's a little weird, but Magnus appreciates Taako's ears. They seem to move independently of the elf's control, and they're generally pretty helpful to pay attention to. Taako has the best hearing of the three of them, and they're the first things to react when Taako hears something out in the field, and they're also good indicators of when Taako is lying about his condition. 

They're not out in the field now, and Magnus doubts that the elf managed to get physically hurt on the base, but Magnus is pretty sure that this still counts as Taako lying about his condition. 

"Hey, big guy," Taako says, and his voice is so much like normal that Magnus could have been fooled, maybe, if they haven't done this before. "Glad to see you finally got up." 

"Yeah." Magnus wipes his face tiredly, trying to rub the exhaustion away through sheer force. He needs to be able to focus, he has to see what's wrong and  _fix_ it."What's up?" 

"Nothing much, just chilling." Taako pops another grape in his mouth, casual as hell, but as he speaks, his ears twitch back to press flat against his skull. 

And Magnus watches him for a second, trying to think, trying to figure out a way to help. Eventually, he thinks  _fuck it_ , if they're going to feel like shit, they might as well feel like shit together. 

"Wanna watch Fantasy TV?" he asks. 

Taako practically springs out of his seat, " _Fuck_ yes," he sounds exaggeratedly relieved. 

He grabs Magnus and practically drags the human over to the couch, and Magnus, still practically dead on his feet, isn't complaining. He goes along easily when Taako pushes him back onto the sofa, allowing himself to be maneuvered until he's in a position that Taako apparently finds satisfying. Taako takes a step back to survey what he's done, and then promptly crams himself into what free space is left on the couch. 

The contact is grounding, and Magnus tries to focus on the TV, because it's a distraction and a distraction is exactly what he needs right now, but despite his efforts, his thoughts keep sliding back towards Julia. 

She had been so close. He would have been able to reach out and touch her, but the sight of her after all that time had kept him locked in place, just staring. 

He'd been so worried that he was forgetting her, and looking at her again had proven that she was everything that he remembered and more. 

His chest hurts. He misses her.

Taako shifts and Magnus' eyes snap open; he hadn't even realized that he was falling asleep again. 

Magnus tries once more to focus on the TV, some fashion show that Taako likes, and while he's struggling, he feels Taako grab one of his hands. He doesn't comment. 

No one had a good time in Refuge. The town itself wasn't bad, and the people who lived there were nice. But the dying had been gnarly and exhausting, weird to experience and weirder to think about. And the thing with the Chalice? No one had gotten out of that easily. And Taako had looked almost unraveled by whatever it was he'd been shown. 

Magnus doesn't mind offering comfort, he never does, and after all, it's not like he's not getting something out of it in return. 

He realizes that he'd been zoning out again when one of Taako's ears twitches back and hits him in the face. Magnus glances down at them and is reminded, not for the first time, of a cat. 

He reaches up with his free hand and pinches Taako's ear gently between the pads of his fingertips. 

It twitches out of his grip. Magnus giggles. 

Taako makes a vague noise of complaint, but doesn't actually say anything in protest, and after a pause, Magnus does it again. 

The ear jerks out of his grip and flicks irritably. "Guy, quit messing with my ear," Taako mumbles, throwing a mildly vexed look after his shoulder at the human. 

"They're funny," Magnus replies, doing it again. 

"I'm going to crush you to death," Taako growls, his ear twitching free once more. The elf makes no actual move to get up. 

"You're not big enough," Magnus retorts easily, debating going in for a fourth shot. 

"I'm fatter than you." 

"Muscle weighs more than fat." 

"Asshole." Taako reaches back and starts fumbling around for Magnus' hand. Magnus flicks the tip of Taako's ear and watches it flick around in annoyance, then lifts his arm out of the elf's reach. "I'll burn a spell slot." 

"Yeah, okay, whatever." Magnus says, his tone playfully mocking. He moves his hand down slightly until Taako grabs it with a noise of triumph, and forces it around his middle until he has Magnus' hand pinned under his bulk. 

Magnus now has Taako wrapped up in what is basically a bear hug. They're kind of spooning a bit. He hums, and squishes the elf closer to his chest. 

Taako lets out a surprised grunt, "Asshole," he repeats, glaring. 

But he settles comfortably against Magnus' front, and his ears are perked up happily. 

And Magnus doesn't feel like he's being crushed anymore. The weight is still there, but it's back to being the background ache that it usually is. 

He supposes that makes sense. Way back when this used to happen some days for no reason, what always helped was being around family. 

Things have changed, obviously. The reason for the bad days, the people he has around him. 

But family is family, and family helps. Magnus settles in, and feels like he's well on his way to feeling better. 

**Author's Note:**

> i appreciate the fact that griffin has p much made it so that i can stick 'fantasy' in front of anything and have it be within the realm of conceivable canon.  
> also i'm like, swamped with school work that i've been putting off, but i've got a backlog of fics that i want to work on so i'm hoping that i'll have time over the break to write them. wish me luck.  
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


End file.
